THE FRINGE OF THE MOOR' 239 



fir, standing ankle-deep in yellow grass or breast-high 

 in bracken, breaks imperceptibly into a bed of heather, 

 dotted with young trees, which in turn gives way to 

 swampy hollows or rushy wastes, not infrequently 

 bordering a field or two of stubble or turnips before 

 the wood or moor begins again. Small coverts, great 

 open brakes of fern, and deep ravines where the 

 heather can scarce cling to the steep sides between 

 the rocks, succeed each other in delightful confusion, 

 the whole forming an agglomeration of various sorts 

 of covert, which used to be called by the old keeper 

 at Drumlanrig ' by the expressive term of ' what- 

 nots.' 



Many charming days have I enjoyed in years 

 gone by among those ' what-nots,' where sometimes 

 twelve or thirteen varieties of game, from the fallow 

 deer to the jack-snipe, were killed in one day, and 

 great were the numbers of the black-game. The two 

 distinct kinds of black-game driving are determined 

 by the nature of the ground. In the one your com- 

 pany of well-organised drivers sweeps a succession of 

 so-called pastures, though the herbage on them is 

 not of the best, differing but little, except for the 



1 Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, the principal seat of 

 the Duke of liuccleuch, which stands un an estate of 175,000 

 acres. 



